Untitled
an excerpt

[From Prologue]

“Casualty report.”

André shivered again as the Captain paced around him, moving in short, skittish bursts. Like a reptile, André thought. Slitted green eyes glared at him strongly, angrily, cementing that feeling of cold-bloodedness.

“André, casualty report.”

“A-ah, yes. We lost four men to ori poisoning, two more are in critical condition. We’ve managed to treat the rest.”

“I see.” There was a brief, pained tinge to the Captain’s voice for that uttering. “How are you, André?”

“I’m a bit light-headed, I’ll check with the doctor post-report.” He felt a little more than ‘a bit’, but he would never admit such weakness to Razor.

“Understood,” Razor said. He paced around André for a short while before continuing. “Do you have any idea how the material broke out of its container?”

“I didn’t s-see it myself, s-sir. But some of the workers said that a container just…exploded.”

A brief pause.

“We will need to greatly reinforce all future containers, then. I hadn’t expected this…” Razor trailed off. For almost a minute, the two stood in awkward silence. Finally, the Captain said, “We’ll give a proper burial to the workers and compensate their families. Send them my condolences, as well. You are dismissed.”

“Y-yes, Captain.” André once again stepped outside into the humid air of the Caribbean, but it did not melt the bad feelings he had this time. What had happened down in the hold was far from routine, but what exactly had caused it? He did not know, and at that moment he really did not think he wanted to know. Some things were better left buried, after all.

[From Chapter I]

A pair of watchful eyes gazed through electronic goggles, a reticule locked onto the car of the would-be bank robbers. A series of statuses of the target were displayed on the right, another series on the functionality of the suit on the left.

“These guys have to be the bank robbers,” the mystery person said. He was following behind them despite their high speed thanks to his incredible Eterna Suit, a jury-rigged powered suit with a variety of functions – including a set of rollers on the boot soles that could reach upwards of 40 MPH. “This is your unlucky day, criminals!”

The suit itself was a dark, matte green color that would’ve made it nearly impossible to see at night. It was very clearly not a sleek construct, with a great deal of asymmetrical design thrown in – excluding the helmet and facemask.

“For I am the Eterna Trooper! You’re not getting away!” He clicked a button inside one of the gauntlets and increased speed, pushing the rollers to their limit. The suit itself was holding up surprisingly well, though, especially since it was never tested for endurance in such a situation. “Dang it, slow down!”

The two robbers were not about to just pull over and face him directly, they instead began to speed even more, and in a 30 MPH zone at that. Eterna, meanwhile, was falling behind very quickly. The rollers’ little engines couldn’t handle anything faster without the possibility of complete failure, but he wasn’t discouraged in the slightest.

You’re not fast enough to dodge this, he thought as a small compartment on the suit’s back opened. A shoulder mounted ‘gun’ whizzed out and, with a small whirr of gears, moved to his left side. The shifted itself downward, a grappling hook held very firmly in the barrel of the ‘gun’. A second targeting reticule appeared on his visual, this one distinct from the first.

It seemed like it would be easy to get them in his sights, but they suddenly swerved and turned down a different road. Their car nearly flipped over, but it somehow managed. Eterna, however, didn’t have the traction to make a turn like that.